


Right Back Where

by halotolerant



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: 1950s, Hope, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Permanent Injury, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 10:20:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11621538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant/pseuds/halotolerant
Summary: "Seen you somewhere before, ain't I?"





	Right Back Where

**Author's Note:**

> A film apparently designed for me to (a) have 8 million feels about (b) ship everyone with everyone. I am Too Busy To Write Fic (TM) just now but also this little thing fought it's way out of my brain and here it is.

"Seen you somewhere before, ain't I?"

 

Tommy curls his lip at the question, lets his last puff of cigarette smoke blow out disdainful and fast. He's got nice lips, he's been told that in places like this. Not that you exactly see much in Gents lavatories - one sick-yellow lightbulb smeared in dead flies and light glowing back dim on shiny green tiles, more often than not. 1951 in Great Britain, the fucking nuclear age, and they can't shine a light to help you find your cock when you piss.

 

Find your own. Find someone else’s. Maybe they keep it dim on purpose.

 

It’s been a long week and a bad night and Tommy came in here for something hot and bitterly consoling, but maybe he should have just tried the coffee at the booth near Trafalgar Square.

 

"Wait, hang about, no jokes, I mean it. I know you from somewhere." The other bloke puts his hand on Tommy's arm. His skin is rough-looking, the lines on all the knuckles blurred away. The little finger is missing. Just a stump left, ugly.

 

For the first time, Tommy looks at the bloke’s face. They're standing side by side at the urinals, and Tommy's been studying an old ticket stub in the pan, trying to aim at it, obliterate the cheap paper. Doesn't do to turn your head these days, not until you're sure the other man isn't a copper. 

 

Isn't a copper on duty. Tommy's had enough of the other. They can be the worst for it (and the best).

 

Tommy's had most things, and heard most things, and this line is old. And unnecessary.

 

So looking now, meeting the other bloke's eyes, Tommy thinks he knows what he's going to see. What he's seen before, a hundred ways on a thousand faces. Lust, shame and a sick, short temporary hope of connection. All the way on the ride from erection to orgasm, from a rush of blood to a splash of stinking semen, you can pretend it might end well, like a film, like it does for normal people. Like there's sense, like there's justice.

 

But it's the sea. 

 

The bloke at Tommy’s side, also with his cock half out of his trousers, rough hands and skinny body, short-cropped brown hair and nice shoes and a decent wristwatch on mutilated hands, has eyes the colour of a hopeless sea on a June evening.

 

And Tommy's skin lights up, hot in this damp, pathetic place, glowing. His cheeks ache with it. His mouth is dry.

 

It was like that on the beach, at one point, when they'd been sitting - Gibson had been there, then - and Tommy had felt it quite suddenly, heat through all his body, before that leeched away too, into the wide, wide wet sand.

 

Tommy doesn't think about the beach, or about the sea. The sound in his ears is from the shells, 1944, Operation Market Garden.

 

"Yeah," the bloke I saying. His voice is rough - Tommy thought it was phlegm, arousal, all the things that make a man murmur. But really it cracks, like something broke sometime, maybe with screaming.

 

Tommy’s hand clenches at his side. He looks at where that missing finger should be, can't help it. He doesn't think about the sea, but sometimes the train... Why not think about a train?

 

"I was in Burma." The voice creaks. Not what Tommy remembers, when he remembers, which he tries not to. "Japanese POW camp. I stole a bag of rice."

 

"You survived," Tommy hears himself saying. It's not a question, nor quite a reassurance. It might be an answer. But he wasn't asking that question, he wasn't thinking about that, he wasn’t.

 

"You survived," the man says back. Alex says back. 

 

He looks a thousand years older. No doubt Tommy does too. They don't put mirrors in Gents lavs, and his own face is on of many things Tommy isn't thinking about.

 

Alex can see the scar, of course. But he's still staring. 

 

They're the only ones in the lav. It's quiet, 3am on a Sunday night in the East End, a time for queers and rats and the kind of drunks waiting to die. And yet the whole small room booms with noise, because Alex knows, and Tommy knows, they both saw, they both heard, they both know what they did, on that beach and on that boat and afterwards.

 

Alex's hand is moving, slow, unsteady, along the rough sleeve of Tommy's coat. Tommy swallows. The backs of his knees ache. His mouth tastes of cigarettes, but somehow of salt water, oil, blood.

 

He's going to move. Going to meet Alex’s hand and either push or pull, one or the other, has to. He’s going to…

 

But Alex's eyes are dropping. And he turns away a little, face red.

 

"You were my first," Tommy says, sharp, sudden. A rope thrown into a void. "I didn't tell you that."

 

"You didn't tell me anything." Alex's laugh is half a cough, but his mouth has turned up a little again. He has nice lips, come to that. Maybe Tommy told him so, then. Maybe someone else has, since. Obviously there have been others, or he wouldn’t be here, like this. Like Tommy. Washed up together, all over again. "Nothing at all, mate, you let me figure it out. Half an hour in a toilet at Woking station to learn it all."

 

"You did fine." 

 

A real laugh now, outrage that's almost cheerful. Then blinking, looking up, half coy, half the boy he was. "I can do better, now."

 

Tommy darts a glance at the door cautiously, automatically. 

 

"Not here." Alex's voice is still thin, like every word is a fight he has to win. "Come to mine." 

 

"You don't even know me." Survival and hope don't mix as well as you might think. You can't believe it ends well and make it through to the ending.

 

Alex's hand comes back to Tommy’s arm. Despite the injury he grips hard. Warm. Insistent. 

 

"I know you," Alex says. All of the sea in his eyes, staring, seeing. 

 

After a moment, Tommy nods at him. Reaches back. 

 

~

 


End file.
